Western Carolina University’s School of Music took on a whole new challenge when creating this opera. From making sure Ron Rash’s works were honored and reflected in the inspiration of lyrics and feeling, a school-run musical collaboration with special guests, and an overwhelming amount of care and detail, down to the lighting and design work […]
2025 Mountain Heritage Day festival was a success despite rain and lightning
October 1, 2025 by
Mountain Heritage Day festival on Saturday, Sept. 27, was the highlight of the whole week of activities celebrating the people, culture, traditions and the diversity of it all in the Appalachia. The event brought around 9,400 people who enjoyed watching different chainsaw competitions, participated in singing, enjoying banjo and bluegrass music accompanied by the dancing […]
17th Annual Spring Literary Festival starts this week
March 20, 2019 by
Western Carolina’s 17 Annual Spring Literary Festival starts Thursday, March 21 and features a variety of voices of literary writers from the Appalachian region and beyond. What began as a visiting writer’s series has grown over the years into a week-long festival of fiction writers, nonfiction writers, essayists, and poets sharing their work with the […]
Rooted in the Mountains speaker talks on mental health issues
October 6, 2017 by
Western Carolina University hosted it’s annual “Rooted in the Mountains” symposium. This year was themed “The Correct Way” connecting worldview of both Southern Appalachia and the Native Americans. Faculty, students and community members gathered on Sept. 28 to hear Dr. Joseph Gone, a national expert in American Indian psychology and mental health, present as a […]
Well-known fiction writer Lee Smith
April 7, 2016 by
Fiction writer Lee Smith will be speaking at the Spring Literary Festival on April 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Coulter Recital Hall and she is expected to draw a very large crowd. Smith will be reading from her recently published novel Dimestore, a memoir about Smith herself and about a time and place that most […]
